The inaugural session on ‘smart cities journey so far’, saw the Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) Hardeep Puri addressing the audience of distinct stakeholders from the ecosystem. ‘Smart Cities Mission is setting a new benchmark in terms of project implementation. This remains one of the fastest ever project implementations at this scale and geographic spread in urban sector’, said Mr Puri during his inaugural addres.

Dr Sameer Sharma, Additional Secretary during his plenary address re-emphasized the significance of machine-to-machine (m2m) and internet of things (iot) technologies in smart cities, ‘M2M and IOT holds considerable promise and potential for Smart Cities in India and the World to improve lives of the people through enhancing existing capabilities manifold and opening vistas of development.’

The forum, also hosted a significant ‘India-EU dialogue on ICT for Smart Cities’, moderated by the European Union, focusing on innovations, concrete cooperation experiences, and business partnership opportunities in the space of ICT for Smart Cities. ‘India and the EU share similar challenges and need similar solutions to ensure smart and sustainable urbanisation. Our Partnership will bring on board the relevant stakeholders to facilitate policy dialogue and provide best practices, business solutions and joint research & innovation, and to look at financing models’, said Tomasz Kozlowski, Ambassador of the European Union.

The discussion points and deliberations from the sessions were reported and will be delivered to the decision and policy makers of the Government of India. The Forum also organized a dedicated ‘India Smart Villages Forum’ on 31 January 2018 that focused on empowering Villages through Technology and Creating Rural Innovation Clusters’.

This specialized session brought together the stakeholders from the eco-system addressing the basics of needs of any village encompassing the vision for a well-connected smart village highlighting key sectors that will contribute towards building scalable and sustainable smart villages in India.

While sharing about the latest works which have been initiated by Ministry of Rural Development, Dr Seema Gaur, Chief Advisory, Ministry of Rural Developmen said: "Under BharatNet which is the world’s largest broadband connectivity program, recently a significant milestone has been achieved by connecting over 100,000 Gram Panchayats which is the basic administrative unit at village level."

Ajay Singh Yadav, Mukhiya (Village Head), Village Dharnai, District Jehanabad, Bihar shared information about his works with Green Peace International to bring electricity via Solar Power to his village. It took 1.5 years to completely install the solar plants, which were then used to provide electricity to the whole village.

India m2m + iot Forum 2018 was supported by European Union, Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications, Government of India, Digital India, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, Smart Cities Mission, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India.